SONY, REALNETWORKS TEAM UP ON SECURE ELECTRONIC MUSIC DISTRIBUTION.Deal Lets Users Download, Securely Transfer Digital Music From RealJukebox to Sony Audio Players Last week at the Consumer Electronics Show, Sony Corp. and RealNetworks Inc. announced an alliance to enable consumers of RealJukebox with Sony's electronic music distribution technologies to easily download and securely transfer music to Sony's portable audio players A portable audio player is a personal, electronic device that allows the user to listen to recorded audio while mobile. Portable audio players became possible in the 1970s and continue to be developed today. . RealNetworks plans to integrate support for Sony music technologies into RealJukebox, including ATRAC ATRAC - Adaptive TRansform Acoustic Coding 3, its sound compression format, as well as OpenMG copyright protection technology, the Sony Memory Stick and its portable audio players such as "Memory Stick Walkman" and "VAIO (Video Audio Integrated Operation) Sony's trade name for its desktop and laptop PCs. In mid-1998, Sony introduced its 505G series of subnotebooks that were the first in ultra-thin Pentium portables. Music Clip." The enhancement to RealJukebox is expected to ship in the summer, and will be designed for use with "OpenMG" on PCs to comply with SDMI (Secure Digital Music Initiative) A set of rules for securely distributing digital music over the Internet. Announced in February 1999, it is backed by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and Sony, Warner, BMG, EMI and Universal, the top five (Secure Digital Music Initiative Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI) was a forum formed in late 1998, comprised of more than 200 IT, consumer electronics, security technology, ISP and recording industry companies, ostensibly with the purpose of developing technology specifications that protected the ) requirements for copyright management. Both RealNetworks and Sony are active members of SDMI. RealNetworks also expects to provide integrated support for Sony's ATRAC3 codec (1) (enCOder/DECoder) A hardware circuit that performs analog-to-digital conversion (ADC) and digital-to-analog (DAC) conversion. When analog signals are entered into a computer, cellphone or other device via a microphone or video source such as VHS tape or analog TV, technology, which will enable consumers to download and play ATRAC3- encoded music on PCs, as well as downloading such music to Sony's portable audio players packaged with OpenMG, like Memory Stock Walkman and VAIO Music Clip. Initially, RealNetworks and Sony plan to develop a version of RealJukebox for Windows 98 and 2000. "We are thrilled to enter into such a fundamental relationship with Sony and to provide more than 20 million consumers of RealJukebox with one of the most convenient and flexible means of acquiring, storing and experiencing their music," says Phil Barrett, senior vice president of Media Technologies at RealNetworks. "This collaboration of established industry leaders will significantly accelerate the electronic music distribution revolution." |
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